straight up answers

A while back, I asked for your questions for my podcast.  Well, it’s now available, free, though it’s not really perfect.  One of the questions is kind of cut off.  I was asked "if Straight Up and Dirty had a soundtrack, what would it be?"  I didn’t read from a script when recording my answers to these questions, so there are quite a bit of "um"s included.  Overall, at least now you know what I sound like and hopefully have more answers to your questions… which might provoke more questions, so I’m leaving the comment section open… for now.  And, in advance, I’m sorry the Harper Collins site where it’s hosted requires you to log in.  So sorry about that.

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COMMENTS:

  1. You sound so young! :) I'm jealous. I always think I kinda sound like one of the Bouvier sisters. Not at all young and full of smoke.

    Loved the podcast.

  2. Wow. Not at all how I thought you would sound, and I have only heard you speak the first sentence or so. But it makes me smile, being able to now imagine your voice reading out your blog every single day.

    Thanks for sharing!

  3. You should have a talk show. Great voice!

    And you answered my question. Thank you.

  4. Your voice is just about completely free of any sort of regional accent. Quite a feat for a girl from Lawn Guylandt.

  5. I was at the Chicago book reading. It's funny because I was expecting you to sound different as well.
    The pod cast and the reading gave some great insight. I think people forget that you're writing about your real life experiences. I was guilty of that. Hearing you read them with actually changed the way I viewed some of the chapters.
    Also, I love that you point out that your dad will read this and yes, it might be embarrassing. But I agree with you, saying things out loud isn't always easy, but once it's out, the experience can be very cathartic.

  6. it's so interesting because i had a very distinctive voice in my head when i read your entries and your book. i felt as if i had spoken to you before or heard your voice somewhere. i knew what you sounded like, but just like everyone else is saying, you don't actually sound anything like the person in my head. just like radio djs look nothing like they sound.

  7. I was curious about the same thing.

    Has "Gabe" contacted you? How did he handle the exposure?
    Word must have gotten back to him in some form or another.

    Did you warn him before the book was released? Did he have to sign anything to approve you writing about the experiences b/c of legalities, or no b/c you changed his name?

  8. It's great that the people in our lives wouldn't get offended by things that are written about them. I wrote a book that included a break up, which explained details of my girlfriend's behavior. The first book went to her, (actually the manuscript) to see if she was offended. She was actually flattered that I put her in the book…and generally people are flattered.

    With the comical stories and things that you went through, you basically make them out to be a 'character' which puts them in the spotlight.

    I think you did a great job!

  9. Loved the podcast!

    Your voice is very familiar, reminds me of my friends from when I lived on the East Coast. No, it's not a distinctive New York accent, but reminds me of home.

    You should do podcasts from time to time with your blog :-)

  10. I finished your book two nights ago and was so sad that whoever the Stephen character was and you didn't end up together. I kept hoping you changed Phil's name to Stephen and was so, so happy to hear you say that on the podcast! Now my only question is about the gravestone… Stephanie and Stephen… I loved that story! I agree that a podcast every once in awhile would be fun; it brings a whole new element to the stories you write. Thanks so much for sharing so much of yourself and your stories!

  11. thanks for making that available! everyone seems to love commenting on your voice! i'll agree it was nice to put a voice to your style of writing and pictures. it was very animated…just like your writing and also very familiar as someone mentioned above. but i grew up in lehighton, pa so i'm betting the geographical location doesn't play in here (or maybe it does). maybe through writing our true voice comes out, ha! :)

  12. I LOVED the podcast. You should definitely do more. It opens you up as a different person. Wait, maybe i'm not saying that right. You become real. More than words on the page and that's powerful.

  13. Listening to the podcast was like sitting with a good friend exchanging stories. I have so many more questions! Maybe a podcast II?

  14. Hearing you today put a huge smile on my face. Such a sweet and articulate voice! You truly have an excellent command of language.

    Love,

    Amanda

  15. great podcast ! you sound just like I thought with the exception that you sure enunciate more than I expected. Ahhh at least I feel like I got a slighty vicarious thrill of being at a book reading.

  16. It's great to listen to you Stephanie! I have to say that you do speak the way you write, and not many people do that, it was really surprising. Also, like everybody else, I had a different voice of you in my head…good to put a voice to the face hahaha

    take care

  17. Yayyy Stephanie, finally !!!
    I already have an account with HarperCollins, i opened it to read an excerpt from your book.
    Great…

  18. Stephanie!
    I loved the podcast! You have such a sweet voice! I hope you do more of these!

    I have a question– and maybe it's answered more in the book which I'm halfway through… but…

    What's the timeline like of when you got divorced, when you met The Suitor, and got engaged?

    Thanks so much for posting that link!

  19. Forgot to mention that I think you should record the book on tape. Reading the story was so theraputic for me…but hearing you read it would mean even more. Is there any plan for that?

    Love,

    Amanda

  20. I enjoyed the podcast a lot. That is my very first podcast to ever listen to! It was very clear and you could understand everything! Your voice lit up when you talked about your furkid Linus!

  21. Again, like most are saying totally not the voice I had in my head but still great to put a voice to the face and writer that I look forward to reading every day.

  22. Alright, I listened to it. I got what I thought to be half of it in last Friday, and the last 2 minutes in last night. Which brings me to my first comment – it was incredibly short. When you take into account the intro and then the 4 minutes of dead silence at the end of the track, it's really short. The first portion of it sounded weird. The dude (incidentally, who is the dude?) read you a question, you answered it, but then you jumped into a whole new answer about which song you would play (or dedicate) to your dog. I think you jumped one more time before we got another question and answer that seemed remotely related to one another. I could follow it, but it just seemed weird, like someone fell asleep in the editing room.

    I thought it was interesting to hear your voice. It sounded nice and much more youthful than I think I had expected, but I'm not sure why I hadn't expected it.

    I thought it was interesting to hear about how you felt the book had two arcs contained in it, and I thought it even more interesting to hear that more people seemed to like the second half, where you seem to have more deeper introspection. I wish you had been able to flesh some of that out more. A lot of it seemed a little cursory – probably for us blog folks with short attention spans.

    I was wondering about one distinction that you drew. You changed the names of friends and lovers but not the names of family members in the book. I wondered why. I suppose the family member names would be more easily discovered and so you felt it pointless to change the names, but why change the names of all the others – even the good ones? I have ideas of why you might have done it, but it would be interesting to hear.

    I think it was a great podcast, but I really felt it would have been great with a little more development on the topics, or maybe with someone giving follow up questions to flesh it out more.

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